‘Men are not expected to be interested in babies’: how society lets new fathers – and their families – down

Around one in 10 fathers experience serious mental health issues in the period before and after their child is born. What can be done?

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Dean Rogut was holding it together.

He had become a father for the first time, but it had not gone to plan. At 12 weeks pregnant, his wife was put on bed rest. At 24 weeks, their son, Max, was born.

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On World Hunger Day, make maternal nutrition a government priority | Letter

Former development ministers Valerie Amos, Lynne Featherstone and Liz Sugg call on leaders to commit to ensuring that women and children have access to good nutrition

Malnutrition and hunger are soaring across the world, leading to hundreds of millions of people suffering and posing a major threat to global security. Access to good nutrition is foundational to development. Without it, children cannot reach their full potential, physically or cognitively. As a result, economies are undermined and less productive, poverty is entrenched and instability spreads.

Women and girls are disproportionately impacted. One billion adolescent girls and women worldwide are suffering from malnutrition because they typically eat last and least. This has a generational impact as malnutrition passes from mother to child. Improving maternal nutrition is critical to arresting global malnutrition and building a healthier and more secure world.

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What to say – and what not to say – to friends, or colleagues having IVF

It’s all too easy to say something crass or insensitive to someone who is going through IVF – as I discovered when I was. Here’s how to open your mouth without putting your foot in it

It is estimated that one in seven couples in the UK will experience difficulties conceiving, and many will go on to have fertility treatment. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) reports that more than 1.3m IVF cycles have been performed in the UK since 1991. I was 32 when I first underwent treatment, and I didn’t know anyone else who had been through it. Six years on, a quick headcount of IVF-enduring friends almost reaches double figures; we can no longer consider it rare. If you have friends, family or colleagues in their 30s and 40s, it is highly likely that some will be having IVF (that is not to say that no one younger will be – it is just statistically less likely: the average age is now 36).

It can be difficult to know what to say to someone who has shared that this is their path to potential parenthood – the outcome possibly exciting, possibly heartbreaking. From my experience of that challenging time, there are comments that can boost and others that, however well intentioned, can sting.

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‘Difficult choices’: aid cuts threaten effort to reduce maternal deaths in Nigeria

Staff at a UN-run clinic in country’s north-east worry about growing funding gaps amid dismantling of USAID

At a UN-run antenatal clinic in a camp for people displaced by Boko Haram, the colours stand out like the bellies of the pregnant women. Abayas in neon green, dark brown and shades of yellow graze against the purple and white uniforms of nurses attending to them in the beige-orange halls of the maternal healthcare facility.

Within the clinic in Maiduguri in north-east Nigeria, midwives and nurses are handing out free emergency home delivery kits, “dignity kits” for sexual abuse survivors and reusable sanitary pads to curb exploitation of young girls who cannot afford them.

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Delay in improving NHS maternity care ‘costs lives of hundreds of babies a year’

Baby charities’ report shows that high rates of stillbirth and neonatal death are not reducing quickly enough

A delay in improving NHS maternity care is costing the lives of hundreds of babies a year, analysis has shown.

At least 2,500 fewer babies would have died since 2018 if hospitals had managed to reduce the number of of stillbirths and neonatal and maternal deaths in England, as the government falls behind on its commitment to halve the rate of those three events.

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UK women driven to unregulated sperm donors by high treatment costs, experts say

One unregistered sperm donor who claims to have fathered 180 children has sought access to four children in the UK

The high costs of having a child using a sperm donor are driving poor and marginalised women in the UK to use unregulated online services rife with “weirdos” and misogynists in order to have a child, experts have said.

In a ruling released on Wednesday, a Middlesbrough family court judge said a man who claimed to have fathered more than 180 children across the world as an unregistered sperm donor could not have custody of one of the children.

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Having a child has been both the most transformative and mundane experience of my life | Rebecca Varcoe

Parenthood has opened the door to a new kind of love – one not necessarily more sacred or pure than the love for my friends, parents and husband

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Two years ago I fell pregnant and within five weeks I was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, a medical condition that causes extreme nausea and vomiting. It lasted my entire pregnancy and that year was (almost) the worst of my life. Now, I keep being told the relief of no longer being sick is the main reason I enjoyed the first year of my child’s life so much.

Shortly after my baby was born, I started seeing social media content about Charli xcx’s song “I think about it all the time” and its articulation of the apprehension many women have about becoming mothers. I have recently started back at work and miss my child terribly. It’s the unhappiest I have been since she was born, around the same time Chappell Roan said none of her friends with children were happy.

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Rihanna and A$AP Rocky reveal they are expecting third child at Met Gala

Barbadian singer-actor appeared at fashion event visibly pregnant, with Rocky saying: ‘It feels amazing, you know’

At a historic edition of the Met Gala with tons of news-making moments, Rihanna and A$AP Rocky once again stole the show.

The power couple is expecting their third child, the rapper A$AP Rocky revealed.

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How sure was I that I wanted a baby? About 55% certain

I thought the two sides of me – the one who wants children and the one who doesn’t – would duke it out till death

The light in the bookstore bathroom was dim. Even so, I could see the blood on the toilet paper. I wiped some more to make sure I wasn’t just seeing things, and then I stood up, grabbing on to the porcelain sink so I wouldn’t fall.

Suddenly, I understood. I didn’t want to lose my baby. I wanted to be this baby’s mother more than anything I’d ever wanted in the world. I would do anything in my power to keep it alive. The trouble: there wasn’t much I could do.

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